It is easily one of the most memorable promotional trailers of
the 1980s. A little girl, sitting in front of a
television, peers into the snowy screen and says"They're
back."

The promotion was for Poltergeist II, the sequel to one of the
most popular ghost stories of all time. When
Poltergeist was released in 1982 it used modern visual effects to
tell an oft told story of a haunted house. The
effects were scary and, of course, expensive.

Now they're "back" again, but this time the ghosts
really are inside the television. In the television show
Poltergeist, a San Francisco-based organization called The Legacy
sees itself as the final line of defense against
the evil demons of the paranormal.

To assure that no-one mistakes this version of Poltergeist for
Ghostbusters, the producers, The Outer Limits' Trilogy Productions and MGM Television are working with Vancouver's
Pacific Motion Pictures have constructed a classy Bridge Studios-based set that they say will be used as a character as
the show progresses. [ Typist's Note: this sentence makes little sense, but it's how it appears in the article ] The set is
the house owned by The Legacy with each oak paneled room scheduled to contribute to the plot and the suspense. The show
starts Derek de Lint, Helen Shaver, Patrick Fitzgerald and Vancouverites Robbi Chong and Martin Cummins.

According to Trilogy partner Richard Lewis, television audiences
tuning in to see the kind of visual effects that were
created over a period of months by Hollywood's special effects
experts will be surprised at the quality manufactured every
week by a team led by Elan Soltes. Soltes himself told Reel West,
while working on the special effects for the show Mantis, that it is a constant struggle to overcome the short schedule
required by a television series.

"The schedule is something that we're always struggling
against. There's not too many things that we're doing that you wouldn't do in a feature other than the fact that we don't have
the time or the budget. We're trying to anticipate what our needs might be. Part of it is building on experience, in having to rely
on gut instincts to do a down and dirty and say that we're going to get what we need."

Lewis says that nothing on television compares with the visual
effects that Soltes, CGI wizard Bob Habros and the effects
team have created for the series. "There really is nothing
like this on television. It's truly amazing. We have a variety of
different shots here and a minimum of twenty different styles of
effects of every show. The work they're doing is so visual, and
it has a really visceral feeling to it. And that's the key. The
technology is there to help to tell the story. You want the
audience
to be amazed by the story, not the effects.

"In one episode, for instance, we are telling a story of
child abuse. A child has came back to haunt the man who abused
him. There is a real ghost but the issue is as interesting as the
ghost. The man who is being haunted is a friend of the
Legacy but he is a child abuser. The question becomes how do you
enhance the story with visual effects. The body has to
float around and walk through walls so you create that effect
because you want to tell your story. But the story is about the
lack
of closure, about people with unfinished business."

Lewis says that part of the reason he and his Trilogy partners
Pen Densham and John Watson became interested in
making The Outer Limits, and later, Poltergeist was their sense
that they had their own unfinished business. They had made
six episodes of a Showtime series called Space Rangers that
didn't work. They were "dabbling" in television after
succeeding in movies with Backdraft and Robin Hood, Prince of
Thieves. They felt that television, with its quick
cancellations, was too frustrating for creative people who wanted
to make shows that had a visual impact and told interesting
stories.

"We were making movies and then we dabbled in television and
we found it frustrating. We wanted to have more control
over the product all the way down the line and we knew that the
only way we could do that was to sell out episodes through
syndication. We're the only producers who create their own
material so that gives us some advantage."
The approach has apparently paid off for The Outer Limits. Lewis
says that it is now the number one rated syndicated
show in the United States after spending several months on
Showtime. Poltergeist will be handled the same way, moving
from cable out to independent stations.

Brent Clackson, the B.C. native who produces Poltergeist, says
that by making Poltergeist and The Outer Limits in
Vancouver, Trilogy is giving a major boost to what he considers
to be one of the weakest areas in Canadian production.
"Visual effects is weak here," he says. "It's
certainly the weakest area within special effects. We have pretty
good
special effects people in Vancouver, people who can create
explosives, rain, wind, lightning etc. But visual effects now are
mostly done through computer graphics and through the matteing
process. We don't have that mastered yet but by shooting
both of these shows at Bridge, we are taking a big step towards a
time when it will be just one of the many things we do
well."
Clackson says that since most of the visual effects work is done
in post production, that side of the industry should also
see gains as the series progresses.

"When I first started in this business about 15 years ago,
if there was one blue screen effect on a show, no-one knew
what to do. On this show, we did 54 for just one episode. In
every episode we do something that television shows don't
usually do in terms of visuals. In the show coming up, we have
water workers in a tunnel and we see an urn opening and
energy and light and then a beautiful woman appears. She's a
ghost created through visual effects while the rest of the scene
is made possible through the use of special effects.

"We can get the special effects done here so we need to do
the visual effects as well. But so many shows done here still
do their post production in the United States If you aren't doing
post production here then the chances are good that you won't
be doing the visual effects here. There are several sci-fi shows
in town but it's a coincidence. They're not here because they
can create the fantasy here.

"At least, in our case, we are hiring the people like Elan
Soltes who are the best in the business and we would expect the
local people who can do the work to learn from them.

Richard Lewis agrees. "We're committed to four years at
least for The Outer Limits and two years with Poltergeist.
We're working closely with Northwest Imaging here on the effects
and we have already trained 35 to 40 people in special and
visual effects. That will increase as the series continue."

Lewis says that no matter who is used to create the visual
effects on Poltergeist, the story will continue to be the
priority
for Trilogy. We'll continue to push the envelop as far as special
effects go" he says. "But we want to make sure that the
audience feels for the characters. That's the most important
thing. The rest is just icing on the cake. Mind you, I have great
respect for the people who create the effects. They can either turn the light on or turn it off."